Kevin McNamee-Tweed (b. 1984, Stanford, CA) explores the construction of meaning and the ways stories are formed, transmitted, and transformed through ceramics and works on paper. The artist’s pictorial ceramics—often described as “ceramic paintings”— invite close viewing, fostering intimacy through handcrafted detail and narrative density, often infused with pathos, humor, and a persistent curiosity about the world. To assemble his playful, rigorous, and deeply considered visual language, he draws from a wide range of sources. Repeated motifs are mined from art history as well as the textures and symbols of everyday life. Material inquiry and sustained experimentation drive his mark- and image-making, most notably through clay and glaze.
Kevin McNamee-Tweed lives and works in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and has held solo exhibitions at Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, SC; Institute of Contemporary Art, Chattanooga, TN; The Museum of Human Achievement, Austin, TX; and The Menil Collection, Houston, TX. He received an MA and MFA from University of Iowa and a BFA from New York University. His work is included in the public collections of Dallas Museum of Art, TX; Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, SC; Institute of Contemporary Art, Chattanooga, TN; Museum Lucien de Gheus, Poperinge, Belgium; and The Bunker, West Palm Beach, FL. His work has also been shown at Museum Lucien de Gheus, Poperinge, Belgium; Tatjana Pieters, Ghent, Belgium; Dutton, New York; Mrs. Gallery, Maspeth, NY; Cob Gallery, London, UK; Steve Turner, Los Angeles, CA; L21 Gallery, Mallorca, Spain; Harper’s, New York; among many others. He is the recipient of numerous awards and residencies including the Ella Fountain Pratt Award, the Mildred Pelzer Grant, the Wilhelm and Jane Bodine Fellowship, The Iowa Arts Fellowship, and the Montello Foundation Fellowship. Reviews of his work have appeared in ARTFORUM, Art in America, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Artnet, Glasstire, Le Monde, and Hyperallergic, among others. McNamee-Tweed has published extensively, including monographs, collaborative projects, and artist’s books.
